Judge orders Southwest Airlines to receive “training” from anti-abortion extremist group
This week, a federal judge appointed by former president Donald Trump, Brantley Starr, ordered three attorneys who work for Southwest Airlines to undergo "religious liberty training" conducted by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a far-right extremist group that opposes abortion rights. Starr ordered that the "training shall be conducted by ADF at a time set by ADF, it shall last a minimum of 8 hours of instructional time, and it must be completed by August 28, 2023." The company "must transport ADF’s representative to Dallas and be responsible for any food, accommodation, or other travel expenses for ADF’s representative."
How did this happen? Starr's ruling, first reported by Chris Geidner, is related to a case filed by Charlene Carter, a Southwest flight attendant, against the company. According to Southwest, Carter was terminated on March 14, 2017 for "a two-year grossly offensive and terrible campaign to personally torment Audrey Stone, the then-President of Transportation Workers Union, Local 556." The company says that "Carter sent dozens upon dozens of messages to Stone’s Facebook Messenger account." The messages "ranged from the insults and name-calling to overtly grotesque imagery designed to inflict severe emotional distress." Some of the messages included "images and videos of aborted fetuses along with an image of women wearing headdresses that looked like anatomically correct vaginas." While Stone initially ignored Carter's communications, it eventually became too much, and she reported the harassment to her supervisor.
Several of Carter's messages are too graphic to publish, but here is a sample:
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